


Something Changed

by sinistercinnamon



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ben Solo Lives, F/M, Good Parent Han Solo, Han Solo Lives, Resistance Member Ben Solo, Smuggler Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2020-01-05 21:06:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18374093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinistercinnamon/pseuds/sinistercinnamon
Summary: When Ben Solo crawled out of the ruins of his hut at the Jedi academy, believing he had just killed his uncle, he made a different choice, fleeing to his father instead. This changes things, though some things are meant to be, such as his meeting with a scavenger named Rey.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I've been lowkey working on this for a while (anyone who follows me on tumblr may remember me posting a rough version of this chapter months ago), & I finally have enough of an idea where it's going to post it. There's still stuff being figured out though, so expect more tags to be added as characters & plot points get properly wrestled into place.
> 
> Let's see if I can keep up a consistant posting schedule for two reylo WIPs at once! (Spoiler: I won't, but I will damn well try.)
> 
> Title taken from the song _Something Changed_ , by Pulp.

Ben Solo lounged in his seat, his attention focused more on the comlink he was fixing than the Eravana’s controls. The Baleen-class heavy freighter mostly took care of itself, and he wouldn’t be required to actually do anything until they dropped out of hyperspace. He mostly kept an eye on the scanners. His father had scammed a lot of money out of people who did not like each other very much in order to cover this job, and grand promises of a good score somewhere down the line would not be enough to mollify them, not when those promises came from the mobile disaster zone known as Han Solo. Criminal cartels were capable of endless patience for those with a reputation for reliability. Han Solo hadn’t been able to claim that sort of reputation since long before Ben was born.

As if summoned, the man himself poked his head into the cockpit. “Hey, have you seen- What have I told you about putting caf on the console? Remember what happened that time in the Western Reaches!”

Ben rolled his eyes. “OK, firstly, that was you who thought that flask of whisky would be fine on that control panel. Secondly, it’s not on the console.” He waved his hand under the cup, indicating it was floating a few inches above the equipment. “If you’re looking for Chewie, I think he’s in the engineering bay.”

Han stomped off, muttering about the Force and how nobody liked a show-off. Once, that would have stung. But after his training, where he’d honed his abilities enough to better sense emotions and thoughts, he’d learned that his father’s opinions regarding the Force were nothing personal – he’d just grown up believing the Jedi were a myth (sure as hell never saw any of them in the Corellian slums), only to find himself thrown into a conflict where he faced down a fearsome Sith Lord with powers beyond comprehension, and finding his usual blasters ineffective had tried to hide behind denial (his usual backup) instead. Even after he’d come to accept that the Force was real, accepting it as a normal part of life was another step entirely.

And then he’d found himself the father of a child with those abilities – incidentally, the grandson of said fearsome Sith Lord (and hadn’t _that_ been a fun day when he’d found that out…). He’d felt unqualified for parenthood even before the day when his son had pulled his lucky dice into his hand from across the room, and the already-difficult task of keeping a small child from getting their hands on anything dangerous suddenly required a whole new level of vigilance.

And, for a cocky smuggler who liked to boast about his achievements, he’d also seen how things usually ended for people who stood out just that little bit too much. He’d always believed that his father was scared of him for his abilities. It was only after he had gone to him after running from Luke’s training temple, and Han had embraced him, babbling things that he would never have admitted under normal circumstances, that he realised Han had been scared _for_ him.

His time training under Luke had certainly helped him see the truth about his family.

Not wanting to ponder that particular topic any further, he went back to his usual constant of bemoaning Han’s acceptance of this job. Sure they needed credits desperately, but Ben had offered his abilities for the sake of boosting their chances a little (okay, a lot) at gambling. Han had declined. He was always reluctant to rely on Ben’s use of the Force. Not because of being uncomfortable with his powers – he was still wary of and confused by the Force, but over the few years that they’d worked together now, he’d grown to accept it as part of who his son was (well, mostly) – but because he was paranoid of taking advantage of his son. It was ridiculous, especially as he usually ended up having to get them all out of whatever trouble Han’s latest scheme got them all into anyway. But he’d spent so long worrying that his father hated him, that watching the man trying so desperately to prove that he didn’t see him as different in any way, even when those differences would be beneficial, was deeply endearing. He and Chewie had given up trying to talk sense into him, and if luck happened to favour them more than chance might normally allow then, well, what Han didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

An alarm beeped, startling him, though not enough to make him drop the caf, mercifully.

Then he realised that, rather than the proximity alert he’d been expecting, it was something else, and then it was only his quick reflexes that spared him the indignity of setting a precedent for Han Solo being right about something. He downed the caf and hit the intercom.

“Guys, you’re not going to believe this…”

They’d found it. The Millennium Falcon.


	2. Ben Meets A Girl

The three of them stood in the hangar, staring at the ship.

After so long with no sign of it, he’d started to worry that whoever had taken possession of it had given up on the idea of using it as a ship and had stripped it and sold off the parts. Or got sick of the recalcitrant ship and its constant demands for attention and dumped it in a scrapyard to be picked apart by scavengers.

Either way, he’d imagined the best case scenario for them finding it again was as an intact but inert and empty shell which would need rebuilding almost from scratch. But here it was, whole and flightworthy (by the Falcon’s standards anyway).

They readied their weapons: variously, a blaster, a bowcaster, and a lightsaber. No prizes for guessing who had which.

He was proud of the work he’d done on his weapon. Desperate to separate himself from his time at Luke’s academy, he’d spent time since then tweaking and customising it. A spot of research (as far as any research could be done after the Empire’s efforts to wipe out any information on the Force) had shown him that his uncle had been far from the first to lose a limb in a lightsaber duel, and he’d added a crossguard to his as a precaution.

“You getting anything, with, you know?” His father waggled his fingers in a gesture that meant _Force stuff_.

Speaking of precautions…

He reached out with his senses, searching the ship. This could easily be a trap. Some enemy of Han’s (and there were no shortage of those) getting their hands on the ship and realising it’d make the perfect bait. Even if it wasn’t a planned trap, there were surely people in there who were sticklers for the ancient law of Finders Keepers and were prepared to enforce it.

But he could only sense two people on board, and they were both terrified. Not even terrified-but-defiant, but terrified-and-panicking. He frowned.

“Something up?” Han asked, noticing.

“Not sure. I can only sense two people, and they’re freaking out so much I could probably sense it from the next system.”

“Good, they should be scared,” he replied, advancing on the ship and hitting the buttons that would open the hatch. Despite his bravado though, there was a sense of caution in him now. Long experience had taught him that even small details being off in some way could be a bad sign.

No immediate attack came as they stepped inside, and he paused, looking around in wonder at seeing his beloved ship again. “Chewie, Ben, we’re home.”

Once he’d been jealous of his father’s affection for the Falcon, but he’d come to regard it as an older sibling. One that he fought with a lot but could mostly be relied upon in a tough spot.

While he shared the relief, he didn’t let that distract him from the fact that they still had a problem to deal with. He could sense the fear of the pair inside the ship, and now it was mingled with purpose. They were up to something. He moved along, searching with his senses until… Aha! He focused on a loose panel of flooring, reached out, and _pulled_.

Two people and a small droid looked up in shock, obviously assuming that the people who’d entered the ship weren’t close enough to have found and revealed their hiding spot. The two humans were wearing gas masks and one was frozen in the act of fiddling with a pipe. Setting off toxic gas. Very clever.

They quickly pulled the masks off, realising the game was up and that it was in their best interests to look their captors in the eye when surrendering.

Without the mask covering her face, the girl was very striking. She shouldn’t be considered pretty by the usual beauty standard - she had a rough appearance, was sweaty and rumpled, but he found he couldn’t look away. He reached down to offer her a hand up, and when she grasped his hand, he felt a feeling like electricity pass between them. What was that?

Han seemed surprised too, though for different reasons. “Who’s the pilot?”

The girl answered. “I’m the pilot.”

“You?” Han seemed surprised, though Ben knew him well enough to detect an impressed hint in there. The freighter needed a lot of handling to get it to obey you, and the girl was so slight it looked like a stiff breeze would kick her over.

Chewie growled that there were only two people on board, so it had to be one of them, and why not her?

“How do you know it’s just us?”

The man, trying vainly to clamber out of the pit, looked incredulous. “You can understand that thing?”

This guy wasn’t impressing anyone, certainly not Han, who brooked no insult towards his co-pilot. “And ‘that thing’ can understand you too, so watch it. Come on outta there.”

Figuring he should help both if he helped one, Ben reached down, grabbed the man’s arm, and yanked him upward. The man muttered a thanks, before shifting away to check his shoulder wasn’t dislocated; Ben didn’t like Chewie being insulted any more than his dad did and had seen no reason to be gentle.

He was about to use the Force to pull up the droid, but it handled matters itself with the aid of a small extendable metal arm used like a grappling hook.

He turned back to the girl, wanting to say something, but not sure what, or why he so desperately needed to talk to her, why he was so drawn to her?

“Where’d you get this ship?” growled Han.

It was the girl who responded. “Niima Outpost.”

“Jakku?! That junkyard?”

The man seemed like they’d proved a point of some kind, shouting, “Thank you!” to nobody in particular, before muttering “Junkyard!” at the girl under his breath.

They all ignored him. Han growled to Chewie. “Told ya we should’ve double-checked the Western Reaches!”

Keen to interact with the girl, Ben spoke up. “Who had it? Ducain?” That had been the last person they knew of who’d had it. Though he wasn’t known to hang around on Jakku, so it had likely changed hands since then.

The girl confirmed this. “I stole it from Unkar Plutt, who stole it from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain.”

“Who stole it from me!” snapped Han. “Well, you tell him Han Solo just stole back the Millennium Falcon, for good.”

He turned and stomped away toward the cockpit, missing the awed expression that crossed her face. Ben fought the urge to sigh. The man, the myth, the legend. They never expected the reality. Her face was lovely when lit up like that though…

“This is the Millennium Falcon!? You’re Han Solo?”

“I used to be!” growled Han, busy examining the state of his ship.

“Han Solo?” asked the man. “The Rebellion General?”

“No, the smuggler!” the girl shot back.

“Wasn’t he a war hero?”

This seemed to be directed at Chewie, who shrugged. “Yeah, I guess, kinda…” Though the man clearly couldn’t understand Shyriiwook, so it was probably a rhetorical question. Or he was an idiot. Or both; that was an option.

“This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs!”

“Twelve!” was shouted back in an affronted tone.

He was about to share with the girl that it was closer to thirteen, when he was interrupted by a shout from the cockpit.

“Hey! Some moof-milker put a compressor on the ignition line!” Han emerged back into the corridor, glaring at the pair. Annoying as the interruption was, Ben was with him on this. The Falcon was frustrating to fly as it was. Why would you complicate things even further for no reason?

“Unkar Plutt did. I thought it was a mistake too. Puts too much…”

“…too much stress on the hyperdrive.” Ben growled, then blinked as he realised that he’d spoken in unison with her.

Han had clearly had enough. “Chewie, throw ‘em in a pod. We’ll drop them at the nearest inhabited planet.”

No! He wanted to hear more about her thoughts on compressors! And other things!

“Wait – no! We need your help!”

“ _My_ help?” Han sounded disbelieving.

“This droid has to get to the nearest Resistance base as soon as possible!”

Ben groaned. Of course his mother was involved!

The man rushed forward, also trying to plead their case. “He’s carrying a map to Luke Skywalker!”

Everything went still. Or maybe that was just his imagination. It felt like time had frozen, and he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Next thing, Han was there in front of him, grasping his arms and then pulling him into an embrace. A furry hand came down on his shoulder, rubbing reassuringly.

Han pulled back slightly, peering into his face. “You OK there, kid.”

He nodded, not sure his throat would work well enough for speech, and Han stepped away. Chewie’s hand remained though, and he automatically leaned against the wookie, giving a soft noise of appreciation in Shyriiwook.

“You _are_ the Han Solo who fought with the Rebellion!” Apparently being able to read a room was another skill the man didn’t possess. “You knew him!”

Han turned back to the interlopers. “Yeah, I knew him. Or I thought I did.”

There was a pause, where Ben wondered if he’d be expected to recount one of the worst moments of his life. Then…

“So who are you?” she asked him. Ben completely forgot his own name.

A distant, metallic-sounding bang came from somewhere outside, and Ben, Chewie and Han all looked at each other in concern, murderous uncles forgotten.

“Don’t tell me a rathtar has gotten loose…”

Somehow, Ben had a feeling than an escaped rathtar would be the least of their problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The crossguard saber is a good design & I will die on this hill so help me. You can literally see him using it to block blows during the throne room fight but I still see people mocking it & I don't understand them. Also it looks fucking cool.
> 
> \- I have a teaser for a future chapter featuring Han confronting Luke [here](http://sinistercinnamon.tumblr.com/post/183755948541/fic-extract).
> 
>  
> 
> I'm aiming to have the next chapter of [Kylo Ren (Accidental) Resistance Hero](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15944585) up this weekend as well. Whether I manage it or not... who knows?


	3. Explanations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past!me: Man I have no idea where to take this fic once I get past TLJ & I'm sure whatever happens in TROS will be so awesome I'll regret not using it as a basis, so I guess I'll go up to TLJ & then leave it open-ended. If TROS comes out before I get to that point I can always adapt it & continue further
> 
> Present!me: wow
> 
>  
> 
> Yeah, if I adapt TROS into this AU then there's gonna be a lot more changes than just needing to account for Ben Solo being in the Resistance instead of the First Order.

“So, fugitives, huh?” Han asked their new guests, who were turning out to be more trouble than the rathtars, as Ben gave the finishing touches on Chewie’s bandage (adding yet another apology for not noticing the danger and stopping the bolt, to which Chewie responded that it was nothing, as if he hadn’t spent the last few minutes making a fuss that a wookie toddler would have been ashamed of). Luckily his uncle was alright.

His father’s tone sounded friendly enough to any who didn’t know him, but there was a core of steel to his words. The man must have picked up on it, because his fear shot up and he began fiddling with the holochess table in an effort to hide his nerves, only to accidentally load a game and have to frantically try to turn it off. The girl seemed nervous too, though nothing to do with his father’s words – she hovered just inside the room, one foot still inside the corridor, as if reluctant to intrude.

He’d found himself strangely drawn to her from the start, though he couldn’t say why. He had to admit she was… not unattractive. But it felt like more than that somehow. He had a horrible feeling that the Force was at play, which was not a good sign and generally led to a lot of stress all round.

Probably realising the man was too tongue-tied to say anything, she stepped forward – though still stayed on the edge – and explained. “The First Order wants the map. Finn is with the Resistance. I'm just a scavenger.”

He didn’t sense any kind of untruth from her, but he recognised the look on his father’s face; Han was suspicious, and Ben agreed – there was something off about this Finn character, but he couldn't get a sense of imminent betrayal, only fear. If this man had lied to her, Ben would throw him out of the airlock here and now.

Whatever it was that had set him off though, Han decided it could wait, turning to the troublesome droid. “Well, I guess we’d better see whatcha got.”

He sounded about as happy about that as Ben felt, which might be what caused the droid to hesitate, turning its head to the girl. Or perhaps it was simply wary of the violation in procedure in giving information to someone other than Resistance high command – droids could be like that sometimes, though astromechs were generally better at thinking outside the box and adapting to new circumstances than, say, protocol droids.

“Go ahead,” she encouraged him, and this was enough for the droid, and it rolled forward and projected a holographic map almost large enough to fill the room, surrounding them all in space, while they were in a ship.

Han walked through it, examining, while Ben stared into a nebula without really seeing it.

“This map's not complete. It's just a piece.” He sighed, shaking his head in annoyance. Ben blinked, focusing properly on the map rather than his own thoughts. Han was right. There was a large empty spot, multiple smaller ‘holes’ in the imaging, and almost certainly missing stars and planets that would prevent any kind of accurate navigation even in the parts they could see.

He suspected it was in the Unknown Regions anyway, otherwise you’d think there’d be some reference point he could recognise.

Han sighed, staring at the holographic space around him. “Ever since Luke disappeared, people have been looking for him.”

“Why'd he leave?”

“Because he was ashamed. He knew what he did,” snapped Ben.

The pair of them looked shocked at his outburst. Like with his father, they only knew the stories, not the reality. At least with his father the reality was disastrous, not murderous.

“Did what?” the girl asked, her voice taut with suspicion. People resented it when their fantasy turned out to be just that.

He folded his arms, meeting their resentment with his own. “He tried to kill me in my sleep.”

This is met with predictable disbelief. Because of course it was. Even his own mother hadn’t believed him; these people who believed in his uncle as some infallible perfect figure certainly wouldn’t.

The girl shook her head as if trying to prevent the accusation from settling in her mind. “No! He would never!”

“Oh? Were you there?”

She took a step back, thought better of it, and then looked at him defiantly, as if daring him to admit he was lying.

He let himself sink down onto the edge of the bed Chewie was resting on, suddenly exhausted. “He was training a new generation of Jedi. I was one of his students. One night I woke up to find him standing over my bed, lightsaber lit.”

They looked stunned at that (at least, the two humans did – hard to say with the droid).

The girl was the one to respond. “No! He- Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t stick around to ask questions! I blocked the blow, pulled the hut down on top of him, and ran like hell.”

He didn’t mention the voice he’d heard, the dark presence that had haunted him, the darkness that came so easily to him. They already didn’t believe him. He didn’t want this girl to hate him.

Chewie, as if sensing his thoughts, reached up a furry arm and rubbed his back reassuringly.

“What about the other students?” This time it was Finn, the supposed Resistance fighter, actually asking an insightful question. The man obviously had hidden depths. “Didn’t Luke tell them where he was going?”

Ben stared at the map for a long moment, trying to put the words together. He’d told this story before, but that didn’t make it any easier to talk about, especially since nobody aside from his dad and Chewie had believed him.

“When I crawled out of the wreckage, I didn’t have any idea what to do, what to think. How could I?” He laughed bitterly. “I’d just woken up. I thought I’d just killed someone. But I could hear the others waking up, and I knew they’d have questions I couldn’t answer. I ran to hide, just to sit and think for a moment, to understand what just happened, figure out how to explain it. The academy was in open grasslands with nowhere to hide, so I ran to a ship.”

He stopped for a moment, closing his eyes as he remembering the feeling of safety that had washed over him once he’d shut himself into the cockpit of the old X-Wing, then continued. “I don’t know what happened next. I heard an explosion, screaming. I looked out and saw the academy burning. Maybe I should’ve gone back to see if I could help. But I- I panicked. I started up the ship and got the hell out of there.”

His mind lingered on the sight he’d seen as he’d flown away. The figures silhouetted by the glow of the roaring fire, surrounded by corpses. They had turned to watch as he took off and flew away, and he could have sworn were looking right into him, even though he couldn’t even see their faces at that distance.

He didn’t look up to see their reaction, the memory haunting him too much to allow him the energy to lift his head. But he could sense their shock and confusion. Hard to say if they believed him, but their hostility had lessened at least.

“Do you know what happened to him?” Finn’s voice broke him out of his reverie.

Han spoke up. “Whatever happened that night, Luke felt responsible for it all, as he damned well should. But instead of offering any real explanation, he just walked away from everything. There’re a lot of rumours. Stories. He was looking for the first Jedi temple. Maybe he found it.”

“So the Jedi were really real?” the girl asked, awed.

“I used to wonder that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo - magical power holding together good, evil, the dark side and the light.” His father paused a moment. “Crazy thing is, it's true. The Force, the Jedi, all of it. It's all true.”

However they’d been about to respond to that, he’d never know, as the Falcon chose that point to interrupt, an alarm blaring from the control station to warn them they were about to arrive at their destination. The noise punctuated the tension and Han quickly turned to toggle some switches, effectively ending the conversation.

The droid, realising this, finally cut the hologram.

Ben could feel Chewie trying to rise behind him and gently but firmly pushed him back down. “You need to rest. I’ll handle the landing.”

He received a bark of acknowledgement from his uncle, and, with a reassuring pat to the wookie’s uninjured shoulder, got up to join his father.

“What’s going on?”

“You want my help? You're getting it. Gonna see an old friend. She'll get your droid home. This is our stop.”

Father and son went into the cockpit, the two fugitives trailing behind.

⁂

The Falcon dropped out of lightspeed above Takodana. Hearing a gasp from behind him, he turned to look at the girl, who was staring out at the landscape in awe.

“I didn't know there was this much green in the whole galaxy.”

He wanted to take her on a tour of every single planet with so much as a small tree growing on it. Twice.

They headed straight towards Maz’s castle, familiar with the approach even though they hadn’t been by in years. Maz had a tendency to exhort him to return home, and on their last visit, words had become heated enough that they’d come within a hair of violating the strict ‘No fighting’ rule. Han had burned enough bridges that he didn’t want to get banned from a place that could offer them shelter in a tight spot, even if it came packaged with guilt-tripping. So they’d hastily left and avoided the place until it because necessary. Which was now.

They landed in the area that passed for an airfield, though at enough of a distance that there was at least a slim possibility that people won’t notice the ship. Very slim.

Not only did this ship (and its pilot) come with a large amount of baggage, but the First Order were obviously determined to get their hands on the droid, and must have posted a substantial reward if Bala-Tik’s intense interest was anything to go by. Everyone would be looking for the damned thing. And Ben would not have been surprised if a gang member had survived long enough to inform on them. He had to assume by now that they were on the First Order’s wanted list.

All the more reason to get this over with as quickly as possible. Get the droid (and probably Finn too, if he really was Resistance) on a ship and out of their hair, and he could go back to trying to keep his father out of trouble. Hopefully he could get to know this intriguing scavenger as well – she’d avoided affiliating herself with the Resistance, after all, and he’d sensed her reluctance to get involved, so she would surely stick around, if only to get a ride to somewhere.

The moment the ramp was down, she was out the ship. Ben was about to follow her – he wanted to see her reaction to being surrounded by lush greenery – but at that moment Chewie tried getting up, groaning as the movement pulled at his wound, and Ben was forced to intervene, eventually managing to convince the stubborn wookie that the universe wouldn’t end if he rested for a little while.

When he finally got out of the ship, it was to find his dad standing with the girl, talking. She was now armed with a blaster, indicating that Han approved of her.

Han called up to his son, “Hey, Ben. I’ll go with Rey and Big Deal. You stay here and help Chewie get the ship fixed up.”

He desperately wanted to spend more time with this girl – Rey – but Chewie needed to take things a little easy while he healed, and he didn’t feel up to dealing with Maz Kanata, who would inevitably turn her large eyes on him and intone some mystical-sounding bantha crap about facing up to his past – which he’d be happy to do if his mother and uncle did so first.

He waved the three of them off. He could spend time with Rey later, when she got back to the ship.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on Tumblr [here](http://sinistercinnamon.tumblr.com/).


End file.
